EX-AFRICAN LEADERS TRUMP FAIR RESOURCE DISTRIBUTION

Retired Presidents Thabo Mbeki of South Africa and Festus Mogae of Botswana arriving at the meeting room at Serena Hotel, Dar es Salaam.

Retired President Thabo Mbeki of South Africa addresses participants at the Leadership Forum.

Former South African President Thabo Mbeki speaks during the African Leadership Forum 2014 in Dar es Salaam. With him are other ex-presidents: Tanzania’s Benjamin Mkapa (second right),  Botswana’s Festus Mogae  (left) and Nigeria’s Olusegun Obasanjo.

Invited guests listening attentively at the Leadership Forum.

Hon. Zitto Kabwe (centre) and other participants at the Leadership Forum.

Retired Tanzanian Prime Minister, Hon. Fredrick Sumaye (right) and Amb. Ali Karume (left) were also among the participants at the Leadership Forum.

CONTINENTAL leaders at the Africa Leadership Forum meeting have said that equal distribution of resources is vital in keeping communities united and focused on development.

At the meeting of the inaugural edition of the forum organised by Uongozi Institute in Dar es Salaam, retired heads of state from across Africa, diplomats and scholars were united in calling for equal distribution of resources to strike a better development balance.

They also noted that giving room to every group in nations and supervising long-term cross border development programmes would be the pivot to significantly push the continent to - to "everyone's aspiration" -- the first world.

Former South African President Thabo Mbeki pointed out that African countries ought to incorporate approved and essential strategies by the African Union (AU) in their domestic policies for the continent to attain sustainable development.

"These approved continental policies cover a wide spectrum of issues which include Africa's politics, economy, war and peace, education and development of human capital, among others," he noted.

Mr Mbeki further noted that the policies should provide an entry point or leverage that could help address the continent's pressing and strategic challenges.

"However, I must confess that many of our countries have not integrated these approved continental decisions within their domestic policies. "I am almost certain that many of our governments are not immediately aware of the existence of these policies and their implications for them as part of the African Union," he observed.

The former South African leader was confident that integrating the continental decisions within respective countries would go a long way to activating the motive forces to achieve Africa's transformation goals.

Regarding the diversity of the continent, Mr Mbeki noted with concern that the failure to manage diverse societies had resulted in persistent social instability, civil wars and violent conflicts, as well as exclusion and inequality.

"The failure to fully mobilise our national human capital for development, even leading to increased brain drain in addition to the absence of social and national cohesion, are also among the failures to manage the diversity," he stated.

He cited conflicts in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), the protracted civil war in Sudan which led to secession of the South, and continuing conflicts in both Sudan and South Sudan as results of failing to manage diversities among Africans.

He challenged the African intelligentsia to take a role in addressing challenges facing the continent as it was the case during the 1960s and 1970s.

During that time, African intelligentsia in universities throughout Africa, as it was the case at the University of Dar es Salaam, made critical and cogent interventions to help the continent respond to pressing issues that it then faced.

"I am, therefore, suggesting that one of the matters we should discuss during our dialogue is what we should do to help reinsert today's African intelligentsia, including those in Diaspora, into the important processes we have convened here to discuss," Mr Mbeki urged.

The former head of state expressed optimism that Africa had a significantly large pool of the intelligentsia, which was ready to help address challenges in the continent.

Addressing the forum, retired Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo told participants that the distribution of resources in nations would be meaningful only if every community would be recognized socially, politically and economically so that they all feel in real terms that they benefit when each country makes wide steps in development.

Mr Obasanjo said that even as Africa has various admirable development programmes, including NEPAD, and a number of others under the African Union, the continent was still slower in making progress given that each leader was implementing stand- alone programmes and inclined to legacies that the colonialists left on the continent.